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Is Blog Commenting Dead?

Let me tell you a little story about how I came to meet John Chow and how we’ve grown to become pretty good friends over the years. Heck, I even crashed at his guest house in Washington at one point.

Learning to Make Money Online

Even though I’d be writing online for years prior, I didn’t really turn that into professional blogging and freelance writing until 2006. I started learning about Internet marketing, online advertising, search engine optimization and all the rest of it. Coincidentally, it was also around that time that John decided to run his little experiment to see if it was possible to earn a full-time income from part-time blogging. We all know how that turned out for him.

At the time, I didn’t really know him, of course. I only knew *of* him, but we just so happened to have a mutual friend who I knew from one of the local car forums… who was also getting into blogging around the same time. It’s one of those perfect storm kind of scenarios. My friend said I should check out John’s blog for insight and tips and advice, and so I did.

Understandably, John Chow dot Com looks pretty different today than it did over a decade ago. Back then, John had a widget in the sidebar that would display the top five or top ten commentators on the site each month based purely on volume. The five people who left the most comments would be “featured” in the sidebar with the count resetting each month. The competition was understandably fierce, because while all links in the comments themselves were nofollow, the sidebar links were dofollow.

Release the Hounds!

So, I did what any self-respecting new blogger would do. I spammed the site so hard with so many comments for so long that I consistently showed up in that top commentator list almost every month. Looking back, my time was probably better spent and I’m not completely convinced how much of a positive impact it really had on my SEO, but the net result was I got on John’s radar, we met over Dot Com Pho, we co-authored a book, and the rest is history.

Which leads me all the way back to today and the current state of blog commenting on the web. Back then, some blogs (I think including mine, but I’m not 100% positive) allowed for dofollow links in the comments as a means of encouraging people to leave comments. This worked, to some degree, but it wasn’t long before commenting bots and spam services showed up to take advantage. Blog commenting for some dofollow SEO link juice very quickly became an undesirable practice.

Some people say that even if the links are nofollow, they carry some SEO value from anchor text and relevance. I’ll leave that up to debate another day. What I will say is that, particularly since pretty well all blog comments are nofollow across the board these days, link building through leaving comments on blogs isn’t really going to work. But this doesn’t mean that blog commenting is worthless.

A Penny for Your Thoughts

The state of blog commenting now is the same as it was when I was spamming this blog some 12 years ago. It’s ultimately about curating relationships, attracting attention, and establishing expertise. If I had not been so active commenting on John Chow dot Com back then, I may not have ever met John in person and I may not have connected with so many other people through that relationship as a result. It’s because of John that I’ve had the opportunity to work with people like Zac Johnson and Nate Whitehill. It’s because of those comments, to some degree, that I’m blogging here today.

So what does this really mean for you?

Keep commenting, but do it with a purpose. Do it because you actually want to engage with other human beings in meaningful conversation. Do it because you’re adding value to the discussion, asking good questions and providing answers and clarification to your fellow readers. Do it to be personal, genuine, and approachable, so people know you’re actually a real human being who may have something to offer them.

Be relevant, be worthwhile, and you just might get noticed by the right people too.

10 thoughts on “Is Blog Commenting Dead?”

Purpose-filled blog commenting works wonders Michael because you befriend other bloggers who promote you, endorse you, buy your stuff and hire you. Personalize comments. Publish a few sentences at least. Be genuine. Flesh out some point from the post. Be persistent. Genuine blog commenting helped me appear on some of the world’s top sites. Definitely works if you work it right.

There was time not so long ago when a lively comments section was vital to running a successful blog. Comments created value for bloggers and their community providing space for additional viewpoints.
reaction and questions. Sometimes the comments sparked a conversation so good that bloggers would append notes or update to their posts to ensure that everyone would see the additional insight I hope blog comments never dead.

If blog commenting were dead, your site would stop showing up on my top referrers in my analytics for my website. I haven’t left a ton of comments on your posts, but the few I have do produce some traffic, which makes it worthwhile. Of course, building relationships, as you stated, also make a big difference, that’s how I met Ryan, above in the comments.

It’s like a strange little form of social media and we all know social media works wonders for marketing.

Spammy blog commenting or blog commenting for getting the link or drive traffic is dead but if you read other blogs and leave a genuine comment and feedback that add value to bloggers and readers, this still works as everyone commented above Michael.

I have been also featured in some of high DA authority site for my comments which is good for me as bloggers.

I remember the blog commenting for link juice days well! There were so many plugins like the one called CommentLuv that allowed commenters to display their latest blog links whenever they left a comment. And the blog owner could set it up to where if you leave 3 comments or more your links would be do follow!

CommentLuv was a blog commenters dream seo plugin .. the good old days

When you consider the number of people who read blogs it should produce traffic in all the major niches. In online marketing the major gurus have blogs as one of their methods of engagement with their audience.

Providing helpful comments and offering solutions will also allow you to engage with these people.

"How I Went From Zero to Over $100,000 a Month"

The Original Dot Com Mogul

John Chow, a damn fine person, friend of the community, Ultimate Fighting Championship contestant, member of the Save the Whales Foundation, the man who controls the black market on baby seal pelts and member of the probably yo’ daddy foundation...

John Chow rocketed onto the blogging scene when he showed the income power of blogging by taking his blog from making zero to over $40,000 per month in just two years.